Please read this... and repost anywhere you can

[Lee Flier]

From David Lowery, found of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker. No one can afford NOT to read this.

 

http://wp.me/p2hvgt-uq

[timrocker]

So. Right. On.

[A. Einstein]

read it, but what is the point of this article, I don't see one?

[Philter]

I'm afraid he's pissing in the wind. Right, but pissing in the wind.

[Lee Flier]

 

read it, but what is the point of this article, I don't see one?

 

 

I guess you're drunk again.

[Vito Corleone]

So, at some point, there's no money left to be made recording and selling music, so that industry dies. Then the only way to hear new music is in live venues?

[Lee Flier]

 

So, at some point, there's no money left to be made recording and selling music, so that industry dies. Then the only way to hear new music is in live venues?

 

 

As was mentioned in the article, live venues really aren't supporting very many people now either.

[Vito Corleone]

 

As was mentioned in the article, live venues really aren't supporting very many people now either.

 

 

Now. My musing is what happens if people stop recording new music and making it available, free or otherwise. Maybe THAT would revive the live music scene.

 

I know, that's not likely to happen. Part of the problem is the ability to make a recording is easier and cheaper than ever. THAT probably devalues music as much as anything else. And as long as people can record themselves for virtually free and make it available, they will. They'll continue to do that long after all the music distribution companies go out of business.

 

So then what comes next? I would guess we go back to something like the old system where songwriters only work for people who hire them to write music for specific projects like movies and commercials?

 

Who knows. Obviously things will change and we're just at the beginning of the paradigm shift. Whining that young kids don't pay for but a fraction of all the music they download isn't going to change anything and certainly trying to guilt them into changing their behavior isn't going make a difference.

 

Yeah, they are stealing it. Yes, that's wrong. But the only things you can do about that is either come up with new ways to police the activity or remove the product from the marketplace.

[Lee Flier]

 

Yeah, they are stealing it. Yes, that's wrong. But the only things you can do about that is either come up with new ways to police the activity or remove the product from the marketplace.

 

 

Well, I think there are a lot of people - people who are well meaning and love music - who don't even think it's wrong. That's all this article is trying to address.

 

The bigger picture of how the industry is going to evolve... kinda anybody's guess, really.

[A. Einstein]

 

I guess you're drunk again.

 

 

not as much as Keith Richards... that I drink is a saga, I don't drink at all,

 

 

 

what I read is a respond of to an Emily who has 11.000 songs she did not pay for, and then follows and endless blah blah of David Lowery, lncluding assumtions with no precise information, for example:

 

 

"Over the last 12 years I

[WRGKMC]

People have no spending money so live shows are one of the first thing

people cut down on. The industry is in much worse shape than that article

explains. It sounds like it was written awhile ago.

 

If you would compare the music industry to the sports industry, there used to be many parallells.

Everyone could play and instrument if they chose to or play sports. The difference begins in the school system

for both. Schools dump huge amounts of money into sports and music practically nothing. Recruiters seek out

great athletes, and musicians have to seek out recording and performing oppertunities on their own. Athletes signed contracts

to play pro and got paid well if they made the grade, Record companies used to own musicians and have them sign contracts.

Now if you havent made your own album and walk in with a money making machine to start with, its highly unlikely you'd get any

kind of contract.

 

What it boils down to is kids steal the music and the parents dont care. You cant run an industry or any business selling a product

that isnt protected. Unless thay find a viable method of preventing the work from being stolen AND punish those who steal, the business

will continue to decline. It may have some revival if the economy turns around and people have more spending money, but the days of

bands earning millions, is dead and gone. A few big bands still tour and can charge a few hundred dollars per ticket, but they are becoming

fewer and fewer. People just dont appreciate the art any more because they are over saturated with it and its too easily available to them.

[Vito Corleone]

 

Well, I think there are a lot of people - people who are well meaning and love music - who don't even think it's wrong. That's all this article is trying to address.

 

 

They know it's wrong. They just don't care. Like they know jaywalking is wrong. So all you can either do is increase the fines/enforcement or take away the product. You can't guilt them or 'educate' them into caring.

 

 

The bigger picture of how the industry is going to evolve... kinda anybody's guess, really.

 

 

Yep. Music will survive. Art will thrive. It existed before the invention of the ability to record it and it will exist beyond the ability of anyone being able to make money by recording it.

[A. Einstein]

Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies.

 

Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies.

 

Without going into details, 10,000 albums is about the point where independent artists begin to go into the black on professional album production, marketing and promotion.

 

 

The whole world doesn't need 75000 music albums per year. When people produce music albums for a market which doesn't exist, then you don't listen when they lamaent about it. In 2010 the sales of songs exceeded far the sales of albums.

 

Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!!

 

This guy has no clue. Never in the history of recorded muusic so much music was sold as today.

[A. Einstein]

People who don't have the cash, also want to participate in consumerism,, that's more or less what it is.

 

Nobody at a record company would think that this people have the cash for buying what they get for free, and you can't blame them when they pick it up on thre net, it's rather similar when you pick something up on the street.

[MikeRivers]

 

So then what comes next? I would guess we go back to something like the old system where songwriters only work for people who hire them to write music for specific projects like movies and commercials?

 

 

Maybe get a patron or the equivalent. That worked for a long time. But of course while everyone has the opportunity for that work, few will actually get it.

 

As far as the article is concerned, how did Emily get the 10,800 songs that weren't on the fifteen CDs that she bought? And what's the content? I suspect that in her position at NPR, she gets sent sent many dozens of songs every month from people hoping to get them played on NPR. Is that stealing? Or are those 10,000+ songs in her library something that other people have to pay for, and in addition are not part of her business.

 

A better example from 30 or so years ago was that Ted Kennedy said that his son had a room full of LPs on cassette and only bought a handful of LPs himself as trading material.

 

I have a radio DJ friend who gets sent dozens of CDs every month from people hoping to get played on her show. But when she goes to a concert and the artist is someone who she would play (she doesn't listen to anything for enjoyment that she wouldn't play on the air - when she isn't preparing for or doing her show she listens to baseball games) she doesn't mooch a CD, she buys it. Of course it goes on her account as a business expense, but she feels that it's important to support the artist.

 

She politely dismisses the hundreds of e-mails a month that she gets that go something like "Please go to my web site and download my song. I think you'd like to play it on the air." She only plays music she downloads when someone is playing in town and she doesn't have a recent CD to play from.

 

I don't buy a lot of CDs myself, but neither do I rip off music and store it in my personal library. I attend small local concerts and music festivals, I sometimes donate my service as a sound engineer. I listen to the radio and donate money to a few stations so they'll continue to play music that keeps me entertained.

 

I think that a telling part of the article is this:

 

"Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. "

 

Seventy five thousand albums released in a single year? Great googly moogly! No wonder nobody's making any money. The high cost of making a record in 1960 was sort of a natural selection process. There were a few vanity pressings, but only a couple of thousand albums released in a year by the record labels, and no convenient way to get the material for free. The real downturn started in the age of the Kennedy kid where among 20 friends there was one or two copies of the 1000 new albums of interest sold. In the 1980s, that got us a tax on blank tape, some of which was supposedly passed on to the artists.

 

But with so many CDs released in a year today it's no wonder that sales are so small. I'll bet that if they could look at illegal downloads, they'd see that only records that sold 100,000 or more had a significant number. Sure, the 99 cents that Debbie Songmistress didn't get because someone gave you a copy of her song is significant, but with only 1,000 sales, she isn't going to quit her day job.

 

Lowrey asks: "Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?

 

Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who create and sell music?"

 

Well, it's simple. If you have all of that stuff, you can get music for free. Maybe given the presumed usage, a small portion of the cost of a computer, iPhone, iPod, and ISP should go into that great pot in the sky that pays the artist whose music they're enabling to be obtained for free.

 

Life was never easy for the working musician. But the reality is that they really don't have more of an opportunity to make money today than they did 50 years ago because there isn't any more money (not accounting for inflation) available for musical entertainment than there ever was.

[A. Einstein]

 

Well, it's simple. If you have all of that stuff, you can get music for free.

 

 

... as well walk out of the Apple store without paying, you can do the same with a sack of potato in the grocery store.

 

The artist who sell, sell. The dreamers who don't sell anything are totally irrelevant, it's like that fool who produces another beer and nobody want to drink it, because is tastes inedible.

[Vito Corleone]

 

"Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. " Seventy five thousand albums released in a single year? Great googly moogly!

 

 

Exactly. It's supply and demand that's devaluing the product to a large degree.

 

From the beginning of history until about 1960 or so, very few people got rich playing music. Making a living doing it was always a struggle. The stars of technology, culture and demographics all aligned to create a "golden" period of about 40 years where a LOT of people could do very, very well making and recording music--much of which wasn't even very good. Everyone who could figure how to strum a couple of chords on a guitar and had a song in their heart had a "shot" at the big time--if only the could connect with other people who would love what they do! Really? This was how it was supposed to be?

 

I think this will end up being seen more as an anomoly in history than anything else. There's no reason to believe it will, or even should, continue.

[A. Einstein]

 

It's supply and demand that's devaluing the product to a large degree.

 

 

No, not at all. When that would be true, then we need only a few brands of each product. High quality always sells, the cheap doo doo nobody give a damn, it is actually stealing the time of the consumer when every fool thinks he must produce a music album, nobody give a damn if he does not sell.

[A. Einstein]

Consume will raise and raise. There are still billions who don't consume because they have no income.

[Lee Flier]

 

They know it's wrong. They just don't care. Like they know jaywalking is wrong. So all you can either do is increase the fines/enforcement or take away the product. You can't guilt them or 'educate' them into caring.

 

 

Obviously, that's true of some people. But many people who are truly music lovers - such as the person this letter was addressed to - do care. They really don't think it's wrong, and they really would make more effort to buy music if they had any clue how much their downloading stuff was affecting their favorite artists. I'm talking about the exact people that Lowery is talking about - middle class young people with a reasonable amount of disposable cash. That's an artist's lifeblood. And yes they can be educated into caring. I've done it a few times myself.

[Vito Corleone]

 

Obviously, that's true of some people. But many people who are truly music lovers - such as the person this letter was addressed to - do care. They really don't think it's wrong, and they really would make more effort to buy music if they had any clue how much their downloading stuff was affecting their favorite artists. I'm talking about the exact people that Lowery is talking about - middle class young people with a reasonable amount of disposable cash. That's an artist's lifeblood. And yes they can be educated into caring. I've done it a few times myself.

 

 

Maybe, but this girl isn't one of those people. A) Lowrey addressed that she felt some guilt about what she was doing. And obviously that's true or she wouldn't have talked about what she was doing. B) She a big shot in the music dept at NPR. Obviously she knows enough about the industry to know about stealing and filesharing. But the bottom line is she doesn't really care. Part of her THINKS she should, but she really doesn't.

[Lee Flier]

Well, maybe she'll care now. I think Lowery does a great job of explaining why it matters - to anyone who might be able to have it explained to them, and I think that's a good number of people as far as how much of an effect they would have on artists' income.

[Vito Corleone]

 

Well, maybe she'll care now.

 

 

Maybe, but I doubt it. She knows what she's doing. And even she did, I don't think the few people who would change their ways once was explained to them would add up to a drop in the bucket.

 

For one thing, the incorrect assumption is made that she'd have bought those 11,000 songs if she couldn't get them for free. I'd venture that the vast majority of illegally downloaded music is crap most people wouldn't pay for, which is one reason why they don't feel guilty about stealing it in the first place.

 

When I was kid, the way I got most of my music--especially the stuff I didn't just "have" to have? I bought used records. Now, when I did that a couple of bucks when into the storeowners pocket, but it sure didn't put any money in the artists or songwriters pockets. So how wasn't I "stealing intellectual product" in the same manner by buying a used Eagles album instead of brand new one as my way to be able to listen to "Hotel California" whenever I wanted?

[Lee Flier]

Maybe, but I doubt it. She knows what she's doing. And even she did, I don't think the few people who would change their ways once was explained to them would add up to a drop in the bucket.

 

OK, gosh, you're right. No one ever learns anything. I'm very sorry I posted this.

 

[Vito Corleone]

OK, gosh, you're right. No one ever learns anything. I'm very sorry I posted this.

 

Well that settles then I guess.

 

Yeah, people learn. Sometimes. This chick? probably not? Via this lesson? Probably less so. I appreciate his earnestness, but he's missing the forest for the trees here if he thinks the major issue is that people like her---and not just some teenaged girl, but someone who works WITH artists and music every day!---is that they just don't "understand" how badly what they do affects artists.

 

Oh! Everything would be so wonderful again and we could all go on partying like it was 1989 forever if not for the evil downloaders and filesharers!

 

Sorry, that's NOT the real issue here. But he alluded to a few of them: 75,000 albums released last year? Really? And he wonders why sales are down 47% "per capita" (not sure which "capita" he's referring to to get that figure, but I digress) since 1973? How many albums were released in 1973, anyway? Heck I probably own half the albums released in 1973 myself. Do you think that PART of the problem might be that so much of the stuff released last year was CRAP? And not just crap in terms of "Oh, my but doesn't Katy Perry suck as an artist" but CRAP as in "has little appeal to the public." Music in 1973 was more precious because it was more rare. And original. Now there's 75,000 albums that all sound alike or sound like stuff written and recorded years ago. And very little of it, including anything that is actually unique and original, has any cultural connection to the audience for which it's intended. Katy Perry may be 'crap', but at least the little girls she sells records to GET her and she GETS them and therefore SHE still sells records and makes money. Sure, her album would have sold much better if it weren't for downloading, but she still sold a hell of a lot of them and made a lot of money. Because the little girls like her enough to want to own the Real Thing.

 

But ESPECIALLY rock bands....I haven't heard much of anything calling itself "rock" lately that didn't sound like it could have been written/recorded 30 or 40 years ago lately. Who's THAT supposed to appeal to? Young kids? Really? Shouldn't they have their own music? Me? I don't buy CDs anymore. I've got to spend my money on Dora the Explorer DVDs for my kid.